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PHOENIX--- With only hours before the federal government shuts down essential services to millions of Americans, Congress appears to be held hostage by lawmakers who think it's more important to eliminate access to preventive women's health care than it is to work on behalf of the people and get a federal fiscal plan in place.

It is an outrage to shutdown the government over an extreme proposal that denies millions of women Pap smear tests, breast cancer screenings and birth control. Tens of thousands of Arizona women will be affected by this twin effort to eliminate the federal family planning program and to prohibit Planned Parenthood from providing any federally supported health care at all.

The business of setting a budget plan for the Federal government – the most powerful and sophisticated government in the world – should be a straight forward matter. Instead, those members of Congress who are holding the budget hostage believe it is more important to score political points than continue to provide basic federal services to families, veterans, businesses and others across Arizona.

This is not what Arizona voters bargained for when they went to the polls in 2010. While they hoped for solutions to Arizona’s seemingly endless economic quagmire, instead they got a new team peddling the old idea that anti-abortion politics should and must outweigh other issues.

At least one member of Arizona's Congressional delegation seems to support the attack on women's health care and Planned Parenthood. In a meeting on Thursday in Washington, D.C., staff in Representative David Schweikert’s office quoted the misinformed and deceptive messages of anti-abortion interest groups to justify the Congressman’s advocacy to ban Planned Parenthood from delivering preventive health care, including birth control, Pap smears and breast exams.

This campaign against Planned Parenthood endangers women’s health while simultaneously putting every Arizonan at risk in the face of failure to arrive at a 2011 financial plan for the Federal government. Attacking Planned Parenthood hurts women and doesn't cut the deficit or fix the economy. It must be stopped.

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In the community for 76 years, Planned Parenthood Arizona is the leading sexual health organization in Arizona. The organization provides health care, education and outreach services to more than 90,000 men, women, teens and parents annually. Planned Parenthood Arizona operates health center locations statewide in Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, Prescott and Yuma. For more information, please visit www.ppaz.org.